David McCallum

A thoughtful, intense presence on television in America and his native United Kingdom, David McCallum was a pop culture sensation in the mid-1960s as the suave spy, Illya Kuryakin, on "The Man from U....
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CBS
Given the success of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, it was a no-brainer for CBS to extend the franchise to New Orleans in a new series debuting this fall. Check out where all three NCIS shows are filming right now.
NCIS
NCIS, which recently celebrated its 250th episode, returns for a 12th season on Sept. 23.
Today, the show is filming scenes for for the upcoming season at Valencia Studios in Valencia, CA which has served as their home base since 2003.
NCIS: Los Angeles
NCIS: L.A. is currently filming at 104 Fremont Pl, Los Angeles, a swanky residence in a gated community that was also featured in The Artist.
The show is moving to a new Monday night timeslot when it returns to CBS this fall.
CBS
NCIS: New Orleans
Filming is already underway on NCIS: NOLA, starring Scott Bakula, CCH Pounder and Zoe McLellan, and this week they are filming at one of New Orleans' most famous historic site: the U.S.S. Kidd. The ship was the first to be named after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor and now it will make history again with a prominent role in this NCIS: New Orleans episode.
See what else is filming on location today in my Daily Filming Locations at OnLocationVacations.com!

Kiefer Sutherland's 24 character Jack Bauer has topped a new poll to find U.S. TV's Greatest Action Hero. The tough guy has beaten out Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers and Adam West's Batman in the new TV Guide magazine survey.
Richard Dean Anderson's MacGyver and Diana Rigg's Avengers character Emma Peel round out the top five, while The Six Million Dollar Man's Steve Austin (Lee Majors), Alias' Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) make the top 10.

Everett Collection
Turning a '60s television show into a major motion picture is a risky proposition. While it has worked on occasion, like in the cases of The Fugitive or Mission: Impossible, far more often the end result has been a disaster. Bewitched, Dark Shadows, The Green Hornet, Lost in Space, Get Smart… the list goes on and on. Even one of the successes — The Brady Bunch Movie — had to resort to parody to make it work. The spotty track record hasn't stopped studios from developing properties that they already own, mostly because it's a cheap way to get source material. This is how Guy Ritchie's latest movie ended up being a reworking of the nearly forgotten '60s spy show The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
In the original, Robert Vaughn starred as Napoleon Solo (one of the coolest TV character names ever), with NCIS's David McCallum as Illya Kuryakinm, his Russian partner in spying for the international United Network Command for Law Enforcement. At the height of the Cold War, it was a sensational prospect to have agents from the United States and Soviet Union working together to thwart a secret evil organization called THRUST.
Ritchie, however, has experience with making material that could easily be antiquated into something more in tune with a modern audience. After all, he turned Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law into a pair of bare-knuckle brawlers in his Sherlock Holmes films. Who's to say that the British director can't turn Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) and Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger) into a badass version of Solo and Kuryakin? Sure, the fact that both Cavill and Hammer have failed to engage audiences when they've headlined big budget fare should be a concern, but Ritchie was married to Madonna and once had Brad Pitt go an entire movie talking in an unintelligible Irish accent… he's not above taking on a challenge.
The main thing that The Man from U.N.C.L.E. has going for it — much like Mission: Impossible — is that espionage really never goes out of style. Deceit, disguises and gadgets make for some handy story building blocks no matter what the set-up is. The trick is almost to ignore much of what came before in the original television show and start from scratch. Reportedly, Ritchie is keeping the story set in the '60s, but hopefully that won't steer his story too rigidly. The best movies based on TV shows, like The Fugitive, make people almost entirely forget where the story came from.
The worst mistake that Ritchie could make would be to try to be too jokey with the material. What comes out of a lot of the television-to-movie projects is that the participants are embarrassed to be doing them and almost feel the need to make fun of their source. Ritchie has proven himself adept at adding touches of humor to his films, usually amidst a steady stream of fights and explosions. For U.N.C.L.E., any jokes need to naturally flow out of the story and action… try to force anything and suddenly the film's either a parody or a pale imitation of the original.
It's an uphill battle to get audiences to care about something that their grandparents watched on television, but Ritchie has more of a chance to pull it off than most. If he can make the 1870s look cool, just think what he can do with London at the beginning of the swinging '60s. Even if Cavill and Hammer haven't yet earned the benefit of the doubt, their director has.
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Bond icon Sir Sean Connery has topped a new poll to find the most popular British actor in the U.S. The 83-year-old Hollywood veteran has seen off competition from Colin Firth and Daniel Craig to take first place in this year's (13) Q Score chart, based on opinion polls conducted in America.
Silence of the Lambs' Sir Anthony Hopkins comes in second and Liam Neeson third, while David McCallum and Daniel Day-Lewis rounded out the top five.
Henry Schafer, executive vice president of Q Scores Company, says, "Awareness of Sean Connery and his appeal was strong across the country and with all ages. He was not working so much but he had already transcended in the way people felt about him."

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. star has played medical examiner Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard since the series began 10 years ago, and the job spark an interest in pathology, so he now studies the subject on the side.
He tells Britain's Daily Record newspaper, "Very early on in my career, I realised there would be many days when I wouldn't be working so I should find something to do, such as woodwork, painting, trying to play golf, or learning languages. For the last 10 years, I've been studying pathology. I've got about six feet of books on death on shelves in my house, going back to the earliest Chinese studies on autopsies."
McCallum even attends real autopsies to perfect his portrayal of a coroner.
He adds, "(Co-star) Mark Harmon is always telling me I am obsessed and I guess I am to a certain extent. I've been down to the Medical Examiner's office in Los Angeles with coroner Craig Harvey and I've managed to not just watch autopsies through the glass, but actually stand in with him while he is doing one... I just want to get it right. I get a lot of letters from real pathologists thanking me for representing their profession with a degree of accuracy."

"I have a Russian film about the Babi Yar Massacre in development that is being directed by Sergei Loznitsa." The guy who produced Star Wars said that. And that's awesome.
Rick McCallum, a Lucasfilm mainstay since the days of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, has reportedly announced his plans to leave the billion dollar company to focus on projects independently. Having served as executive producer on all three Star Wars prequels (and the rereleases of each of the movies in the original trilogy), The Clone Wars series, and this year's historical drama Red Tails, McCallum has enjoyed a long and profitable partnership with George Lucas. McCallum's departure from Lucasfilm, as reported by the Star Wars franchise's official website, StarWars.com, comes at a particularly interesting time — at the dawn of the company's obtainment by Disney and, more importantly, immediately after the announcement of the final three Star Wars movies.
With McCallum out of the picture for Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, we're looking toward a set of Star Wars movies likely to be very different from the prequel series that launched in 1999. With plot rumors (and wishes) ensnaring everything from the children of Han Solo and Princess Leia to the adventures of Boba Fett, we've been left to wonder exactly what we'll see in Lucas' next trilogy. Now, an additional mystery attaches to the vision and mood of the movies — in the absence of McCallum, we aren't likely to see the new trilogy adopt the habits of his polarizing prequels. Could the next Star Wars ventures more closely resemble the sentiment of A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi? Or are we destined for something else entirely?
McCallum leaves the creative direction of the Star Wars future in the hands of Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, calling her the "only person in the world who could do this." McCallum's departure appears to be completely amicable, as he expresses a fondness for his time collaborating with Lucas and his well wishes for the future of the company and the Star Wars titles: "George never let the limits of reality constrain his vision, so the challenge to production was always to find ways to make anything possible, while being respectful to the fact that he was financing his own movies ... I have nothing but the biggest faith and trust that where Kathleen is going to take Star Wars will be a bold, exciting, and daring future that will be worthy of all your incredible passion and loyalty for all these years. It will be awesome."
As for the EP himself, he'll be looking toward his own slew of independent projects. In addition to the aforementioned Russian picture to which McCallum has attached his name, he is "also working with Tomás Masín on a Czech story about two brothers who escaped Czechoslovakia during the Cold War while being chased by 28,000 Soviet soldiers in what is still the largest manhunt in history," and "a film with Laurence Bowen about the Boy Soldiers of Sierra Leone." McCallum also briefly mentioned to StarWars.com "a film with David Oyelowo." So one might say that he's leaving Indy films for indie films! ... but one probably wouldn't say that.
[Photo Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.]
More:
New 'Star Wars' Writers Will Expand the Universe with Spin-Offs
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David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas consists of six stories set in various periods between 1850 and a time far into Earth's post-apocalyptic future. Each segment lives on its own the previous first person account picked up and read by a character in its successor creating connective tissue between each moment in time. The various stories remain intact for Tom Tykwer's (Run Lola Run) Lana Wachowski's and Andy Wachowski's (The Matrix) film adaptation which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The massive change comes from the interweaving of the book's parts into one three-hour saga — a move that elevates the material and transforms Cloud Atlas in to a work of epic proportions.
Don't be turned off by the runtime — Cloud Atlas moves at lightning pace as it cuts back and forth between its various threads: an American notary sailing the Pacific; a budding musician tasked with transcribing the hummings of an accomplished 1930's composer; a '70s-era investigatory journalist who uncovers a nefarious plot tied to the local nuclear power plant; a book publisher in 2012 who goes on the run from gangsters only to be incarcerated in a nursing home; Sonmi~451 a clone in Neo Seoul who takes on the oppressive government that enslaves her; and a primitive human from the future who teams with one of the few remaining technologically-advanced Earthlings in order to survive. Dense but so was the unfamiliar world of The Matrix. Cloud Atlas has more moving parts than the Wachowskis' seminal sci-fi flick but with additional ambition to boot. Every second is a sight to behold.
The members of the directing trio are known for their visual prowess but Cloud Atlas is a movie about juxtaposition. The art of editing is normally a seamless one — unless someone is really into the craft the cutting of a film is rarely a post-viewing talking point — but Cloud Atlas turns the editor into one of the cast members an obvious player who ties the film together with brilliant cross-cutting and overlapping dialogue. Timothy Cavendish the elderly publisher could be musing on his need to escape and the film will wander to the events of Sonmi~451 or the tortured music apprentice Robert Frobisher also feeling the impulse to run. The details of each world seep into one another but the real joy comes from watching each carefully selected scene fall into place. You never feel lost in Cloud Atlas even when Tykwer and the Wachowskis have infused three action sequences — a gritty car chase in the '70s a kinetic chase through Neo Seoul and a foot race through the forests of future millennia — into one extended set piece. This is a unified film with distinct parts echoing the themes of human interconnectivity.
The biggest treat is watching Cloud Atlas' ensemble tackle the diverse array of characters sprinkled into the stories. No film in recent memory has afforded a cast this type of opportunity yet another form of juxtaposition that wows. Within a few seconds Tom Hanks will go from near-neanderthal to British gangster to wily 19th century doctor. Halle Berry Hugh Grant Jim Sturgess Jim Broadbent Ben Whishaw Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon play the same game taking on roles of different sexes races and the like. (Weaving as an evil nurse returning to his Priscilla Queen of the Desert cross-dressing roots is mind-blowing.) The cast's dedication to inhabiting their roles on every level helps us quickly understand the worlds. We know it's Halle Berry behind the fair skinned wife of the lunatic composer but she's never playing Halle Berry. Even when the actors are playing variations on themselves they're glowing with the film's overall epic feel. Jim Broadbent's wickedly funny modern segment a Tykwer creation that packs a particularly German sense of humor is on a smaller scale than the rest of the film but the actor never dials it down. Every story character and scene in Cloud Atlas commits to a style. That diversity keeps the swirling maelstrom of a movie in check.
Cloud Atlas poses big questions without losing track of its human element the characters at the heart of each story. A slower moment or two may have helped the Wachowskis' and Tykwer's film to hit a powerful emotional chord but the finished product still proves mainstream movies can ask questions while laying over explosive action scenes. This year there won't be a bigger movie in terms of scope in terms of ideas and in terms of heart than Cloud Atlas.
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In This Means War – a stylish action/rom-com hybrid from director McG – Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) and Chris Pine (Star Trek) star as CIA operatives whose close friendship is strained by the fires of romantic rivalry. Best pals FDR (Pine) and Tuck (Hardy) are equally accomplished at the spy game but their fortunes diverge dramatically in the dating realm: FDR (so nicknamed for his obvious resemblance to our 32nd president) is a smooth-talking player with an endless string of conquests while Tuck is a straight-laced introvert whose love life has stalled since his divorce. Enter Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) a pretty plucky consumer-products evaluator who piques both their interests in separate unrelated encounters. Tuck meets her via an online-dating site FDR at a video-rental store. (That Lauren is tech-savvy enough to date online but still rents movies in video stores is either a testament to her fascinating mix of contradictions or more likely an example of lazy screenwriting.)
When Tuck and FDR realize they’re pursuing the same girl it sparks their respective competitive natures and they decide to make a friendly game of it. But what begins as a good-natured rivalry swiftly devolves into romantic bloodsport with both men using the vast array of espionage tools at their disposal – from digital surveillance to poison darts – to gain an edge in the battle for Lauren’s affections. If her constitutional rights happen to be violated repeatedly in the process then so be it.
Lauren for her part remains oblivious to the clandestine machinations of her dueling suitors and happily basks in the sudden attention from two gorgeous men. Herein we find the Reese Witherspoon Dilemma: While certainly desirable Lauren is far from the irresistible Helen of Troy type that would inspire the likes of Tuck and FDR to risk their friendship their careers and potential incarceration for. At several points in This Means War I found myself wondering if there were no other peppy blondes in Los Angeles (where the film is primarily set) for these men to pursue. Then again this is a film that wishes us to believe that Tom Hardy would have trouble finding a date so perhaps plausibility is not its strong point.
When Lauren needs advice she looks to her boozy foul-mouthed best friend Trish (Chelsea Handler). Essentially an extension of Handler’s talk-show persona – an acquired taste if there ever was one – Trish’s dialogue consists almost exclusively of filthy one-liners delivered in rapid-fire succession. Handler does have some choice lines – indeed they’re practically the centerpiece of This Means War’s ad campaign – but the film derives the bulk of its humor from the outrageous lengths Tuck and FDR go to sabotage each others’ efforts a raucous game of spy-versus-spy that carries the film long after Handler’s shtick has grown stale.
Business occasionally intrudes upon matters in the guise of Heinrich (Til Schweiger) a Teutonic arms dealer bent on revenge for the death of his brother. The subplot is largely an afterthought existing primarily as a means to provide third-act fireworks – and to allow McGenius an outlet for his ADD-inspired aesthetic proclivities. The film’s action scenes are edited in such a manic quick-cut fashion that they become almost laughably incoherent. In fairness to McG he does stage a rather marvelous sequence in the middle of the film in which Tuck and FDR surreptitiously skulk about Lauren's apartment unaware of each other's presence carefully avoiding detection by Lauren who grooves absentmindedly to Montel Jordan's "This Is How We Do It." The whole scene unfolds in one continuous take – or is at least craftily constructed to appear as such – captured by one very agile steadicam operator.
Whatever his flaws as a director McG is at least smart enough to know how much a witty script and appealing leads can compensate for a film’s structural and logical deficiencies. He proved as much with Charlie’s Angels a film that enjoys a permanent spot on many a critic’s Guilty Pleasures list and does so again with This Means War. The film coasts on the chemistry of its three co-stars and only runs into trouble when the time comes to resolve its romantic competition which by the end has driven its male protagonists to engage in all manner of underhanded and duplicitous activities. This Means War being a commercial film – and likely an expensive one at that – Witherspoon's heroine is mandated to make a choice and McG all but sidesteps the whole thorny matter of Tuck and FDR’s unwavering dishonesty not to mention their craven disregard for her privacy. (They regularly eavesdrop on her activities.) For all their obvious charms the truth is that neither deserves Lauren – or anything other than a lengthy jail sentence for that matter.
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Plans for the movie project were thrown into doubt in November (11) when Soderbergh walked away from the project just days after The Hangover star Cooper quit as lead character Napoleon Solo, the iconic spy originally portrayed by Robert Vaughn.
The filmmaker, who had initially courted George Clooney for the starring role, reportedly fell out with Warner Bros. studio executives over casting and budgetary requirements
However, Deadline.com reports Sherlock Holmes director Ritchie has now stepped into the top job, reuniting with producer Lionel Wigram to bring the hit TV show to the big screen.
Warrior star Joel Edgerton had been tapped to play Solo's sidekick Illya Kuryakin in the new film. That role was originally played on TV by David McCallum.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. aired on U.S. network NBC from 1964 to 1968.

George Clooney had initially been touted to portray Robert Vaughn's iconic spy character Napoleon Solo in a proposed film version of the TV show, and when he dropped out, Cooper was slated to take his place.
The Hangover star walked away from the job this week (begs14Nov11) - and now Soderbergh has followed him out the door.
According to movie blog The Playlist, the filmmaker quit after falling out with studio executives over casting and budgetary requirements.
Warrior star Joel Edgerton had been tapped to play Solo's sidekick Illya Kuryakin in the new film. That role was originally played on TV by David McCallum.
The movie had been scheduled to be released next year (12).

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Played a small but important supporting role in the Irish feature "Hear My Song"

Co-starred in "Colditz", a critically and commercially successful BBC-TV series sets at a German POW camp during WWII

Breakthrough feature supporting role, "The Great Escape"

Guest-starred as Illya Kuryakin in "The Moonglow Affair", a TV special that served as the pilot for the spinoff "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E."

Starred in the NBC sci-fi adventure series "The Invisible Man"

Signed a seven-year film contract with the Rank Organization

Played radio operator harold Bride in "A Night to Remember"

First US film, John Huston's "Freud"

Starred in the TV-movie pilot "The Invisible Man"

Co-wrote music and lyrics and sang title song for the feature "Three Bites of the Apple" (also starred)

Had recurring role as the scientist father of Lori Singer in "VR.5", a Fox sci-fi series

Appeared alongside Mary-Louise Parker in Off-Broadway production of Alan Ayckbourn's "Communicating Doors"

Prominently featured in "The Big T.N.T. Show", a concert film that included performances by Ike and Tina Turner, Joan Baez and Ray Charles; introduced acts and conducted the Ray Charles band

Reprised the role of Illya Kuriakin for the CBS TV-movie pilot "The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Ffifteen Years Later Affair"

Had featured role of Emperor Joseph in the Broadway revival of "Amadeus"

Did memorable guest shots on the stylish sci-fi series "The Outer Limits" in the episodes "The Sixth Finger" and "The Forms of Things Unknown"

Directed "The Explorers: Charles Montague Doughty", a segment for BBC-TV's "Ten Who Dared"

Starred in "Teacher, Teacher", an acclaimed "Hallmark Hall of Fame" movie, as a teacher recovering from alcoholism

Featured as Judas Iscariot in George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (released 1965)

Began acting career in English repertory theater

Directed plays for the Army

Achieved teen idol status, co-starring (with Robert Vaughn) as the Russian Illya Kuryakin in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", A popular spoof of the James Bond ethos

First notable British feature credits, "The Secret Place", "Robbery Under Arms", "Hell Drivers"

Cast as Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard on "NCIS" (CBS)

Had a recurring role as Walter Thornhill in "The Education of Max Bickford" (CBS)

Summary

A thoughtful, intense presence on television in America and his native United Kingdom, David McCallum was a pop culture sensation in the mid-1960s as the suave spy, Illya Kuryakin, on "The Man from U. N.C.L.E" (CBS, 1965-68) and later as the avuncular Donald "Ducky" Mallard on "NCIS: Naval Criminal Service Investigation" (CBS, 2003). The Scottish-born McCallum worked his way up the ranks in British film and television before bursting onto the American scene with "U.N.C.L.E." His cool charm and blonde good looks made him an immediate TV idol, but failed to translate into stardom after the show left the air. McCallum settled into a steady diet of TV appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, frequently essaying mellowed professorial types or pensive government figures, before scoring his late-inning smash with "NCIS." The rare performer with two major hits to his credit, McCallum's image and talent ensured his fame for generations of TV fans.

Name

Role

Comments

Jason Bronson

Son

adopted son of McCallum and Jill Ireland; later adopted by Charles Bronson; died of a heroin overdose in 1989 at age 27

Katherine Carpenter

Wife

married in September 1967

Jill Ireland

Wife

married in 1957; divorced in 1967; remarried in 1968 to actor Charles Bronson, McCallum's "The Great Escape" (1963) co-star; died of breast cancer on May 18, 1990